About Me

About Me

Can automated robots help in protecting mother nature? This question seems to bother me since studying about it in primary school.Hi, my name is Ivan Ang Jie Xiong, or Ivan for short. I was born and raised in the beautiful country of Malaysia, which is located just between Thailand and Singapore. I'm 17 this year and I'm currently studying in Form Five in Chung Ling High School, Penang.

I can say that I am a responsible and hard-working student. Moreover, being a sociable person, I have many friends since I like to communicate with people and get acquainted with new interesting individuals. I have a great interest in building things. Its started a few years back, when i was only 6, my mum bought me my first LEGO set. Back then I only built buildings and vehicles. But now, being the president of our school's Invention and Robotics Club, i get to utilise the LEGO Mindstorm sets to build even better and technologically advanced robots and program them using NXT 2.1, Robolab, or even Program C to make them think for themselves.

Through my years in secondary school, i had vast opportunities the represent my school state and even country in various competitions. In 2009 I had the chance to shake hands with Tan Sri Muhyiddin bin Yassin, the Deputy Prime Minister and also the Minister or Education of Malaysia after winning The Mighty Minds Challenge 2009 organised by The Star and RHB Bank. Also, last year, I also had the once in a lifetime opportunity to represent my country in the World Robotics Olympiad which was held in Abu Dhabi. The theme last year was 'Robots for Life Improvement'. I created a robot using mainly LEGO parts which can sort between different types of rubbish and can handle them using the correct methods. I managed to get second prize with my creation. Because of the uniqueness of my creation, I've decided to share it in this competition.

Winning this competition would mean a lot to me, mainly because the scholarship from Google would certainly lift the burden off my parents shoulder. Also, I could also enjoy a once-in-a-lifetime experience with LEGO, CERN and Google. But, in the end, to me, it doesn't matter if you win or lose, it only matters if you did your best.